


Receive

by twoandfour



Category: Benedict Cumberbatch - Fandom, British Actor RPF
Genre: Confessions, F/M, First Kiss, Propositions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-11 15:44:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoandfour/pseuds/twoandfour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You've given up on sex. Being the only one invested in giving in bed has done a number on you. Benedict, though, seems intent upon showing you what it's like to receive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You haven’t had sex in how long?” He gapes at you, incredulous. You blush a bit, embarrassed by the answer, but a bit flattered by how incredible he seems to find the notion of you not getting laid. His eyebrows are doing something impressive and you kind of want to reach over and snap his mouth shut.

“Almost three years, but it’s by choice” you respond, a neutral expression on your face. Almost three years, for so many reasons. Reasons you want to keep locked away so no one ever, ever sees them; reasons you want to shout out and crush under your heel and leave bobbing and gasping in your wake.

You take a sip of your drink, maintaining eye contact no matter the cost. This is it. There was the initial meeting, the first sparks, the drinking and dancing and heady, inherent chemistry… But here was where lines were drawn and decisions made. This was a moment brimming over with anticipation and fraught with possibility. The moment that decided whether a new connection was made, or you went back to your hotel, alone, to put a hand to yourself again, and then burrow into the comfort of the heavy duvet.

And then his eyes soften with something like knowing. He reaches over and brushes a thumb over your hand, then picks it up in his impossibly large one. Bending slightly, he places a light kiss on the knuckles of your index and ring fingers. Your heart skips at the tenderness of his actions and you furrow your brow in question. His eyes meet yours again and they’re blazing.

“If it’s not too presumptuous… May I ask why?” he asks, impossible voice a low, intimate murmur. You suppress a shiver and nod your assent. Pulling your hand back to your own person, you fold your hands together in church position in your lap, and begin. He twines his fingers together and lays them, clutched, on the table, eyes solemn and waiting.

“I’m waiting to be made love to,” you announce. His fingers twitch but retain their place. He nods and gives you a small smile and a look that says “go on”.

Bolstered a bit, you continue. “I have no problem with sex. Even casual sex. I love the idea that two adult people can decide to just go at each other and it can be independent of far-reaching consequences. I’ve had my fair share of those kinds of relationships. Right now- at this point in my life- it seems to be the right way to go.”

He processes this information rapidly and says, “I sense a however.”

You smile. However, indeed.

“However,” you say, perhaps through your teeth a little, “It seems when you put a guy in an open, free, no-strings sexual situation, their response to it is, ‘Finally, I can just sit back and relax and receive what I’m owed.’ Like it’s porn. Like I owe them something. Like a single ounce of fucking work on their part for my benefit is the most boring chore in the world and they’re so horribly put-upon.”

You try to reign it in but you’re on a roll, now. It’s pouring, draining out of you, and if he doesn’t like it or is put off or offended by it, it’s no more of a loss than what you’ve already given up.

“They treat foreplay like it’s the end of the goddamn world. Heaven forbid I should have to touch you maybe a little tiny bit before I can use you to masturbate myself! And the looks on their faces when they realize I might enjoy kissing. Christ, not kissing. I swear to fucking God, they’re all twelve. Is it really such an awful thing that maybe I want to take my time? That I fucking love making out? That I might actually want an outcome of my own? I come pretty easily. It doesn’t take a whole hell of a lot. If I’m turned on enough, I can go a few rounds. But I need and want touch. I am not a fuck-toy. That’s what they make Fleshlights for. I want lips on my lips and hands on my body. I want hot breath on my neck. I want fingers in my hair, and hips grinding mine, and a deep voice in my ear giving me a play-by-play of what’s to come. I want to be fingered and felt-up and pinned down. I want big hands squeezing my hips and thighs. I want disgusting things described to me while my clothes disappear. I want the kind of kisses that steal my air. And I want all of it with someone who maybe isn’t arrogant enough to think that if they give it to me, I’ll be knocking on their door with an air of desperation and a diamond the next morning.”

You take a cleansing breath, a deep inhale and exhale, and realize that at some point during your passionate rant, you’ve closed your eyes. Ah, well. All the better, really. You won’t have to see the either shocked or utterly blank and disinterested look on his face, this way.

What you aren’t expecting is exactly what happens next. You feel feather-light fingertips brush your face, just under your eyes, willing your unwitting tears away. Then your right hand is taken up and he’s pressing tender kisses to your palm, the pads of your fingers, the inside of your wrist. His tongue flicks out against the sensitive skin inside the crook of your arm and you gasp, your eyes fluttering open to meet his cerulean ones.

He looks angry. Tender and lovely but angry, and on your behalf. It’s the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen. Keeping your eyes fixed on his, he brings your arm to his lips again, inhales like your scent is heaven itself, and once he’s run the side of his nose along your skin one more time, kisses that bend so that his lush mouth twists up at the corners in delight.

You stare. “Ben,” you manage, the word a whisper and a question, fearing you might break the spell, not wanting to risk the answer.

Then he’s at your side, kneeling. He runs the fingers of one hand through your hair and glances at you in heavy-lidded supplication. “Come home with me. Please.”

You’re knocked sideways, reeling. “What?” you plead. His lips are so close to yours and he’s practically begging. You could finish this out right now. You could kiss him senseless and get up and walk away. You could string him along and then leave him panting on the floor. The problem is, you’re the one panting. God, you’re soaked through, and all you want is his lips on your lips because his lips look like a fountain in a desert.

Sudden realization sets in. Pretty as he is, tantalizing as his mouth might be, he’s just another one of them. A novel and circuitous route into your pants, but a route nonetheless. You pull away and sit back, ice forming over your eyes. You smile, poisonous and bitter. But just as the dry and rote reply forms on your lips, two enormous hands encircle your face, thumbs caressing, and your eyes snap to.

“We can just… make out. On my sofa. Christ, I’ve wanted to taste your lips since the moment I met you. They’re so beautiful. So eloquent. I want to kiss them. I want to swallow your words. Please. Please. I want nothing more.”

If the look on his face and in his eyes had been either false or truly desperate, you could have walked away. But there was only honesty, along with a glint of true dominance, and you could feel your heart pound in both your throat and your cunt.

“Show me,” you whisper.

His lips meet yours; a bare, brief touch. Fireworks. Your bottom lip is hostage, followed by your top one. His tongue flicks out to trace just inside your mouth, and you quiver, all resolve vaporized. This kiss is erotic. It speaks of dark promise. But it’s oh so sweet. Unlike any kind of sweet you’ve known. And to top it off, it’s slow and steady and patient. It exists for the sole enjoyment of itself.

After a moment, you’re the one to break the kiss. You pull back slightly, enough to track your eyes across his face. There’s no guile there. Only affection. Maybe gratitude. Undemanding anticipation. Appreciation. Hell… lust. You bite back a groan.

“… Sofa?”

“Sofa. I want to kiss you on my sofa. Just kiss you. You’re magnificent.”

“And when I want to go home?”

“Then I drive you there, and make sure you get to your room safely, and pray you call me the next day.”

He flashes you a crooked smile that makes your insides churn with naked want. You blush crimson and lean forward, burying your nose in the space where his shoulder happily and harmoniously coincides with his neck.

“… Anything else?” you ask, genuinely curious.

He places soft lips just under your ear, sucking the skin in between his teeth gently enough to not leave a mark without your permission, and answers in a throaty hum, “Only what you’re willing to receive.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things heat up in the taxi, and Benedict gives you a run for your money.

In the taxi the tension is butter-thick and you’re drowning in it. He’s sitting a respectable distance from you- whether out of respect for public decency or for the express purpose of driving you to madness, you don’t know- but is holding your hand, resting your twined fingers on the seat between you. The silence roars in your ears and you can hear your own breaths escaping you in labored little pants even as you try to even them out.

You feel his eyes on you so you turn to meet them. One corner of his impossible mouth quirks up and there’s an unholy twinkle in his eyes. He lifts an eyebrow as if to inquire after your thoughts, but you simply smile and lightly squeeze the warm, dry hand currently enveloping yours. He nods in acceptance, nothing more than a slight downward tilt of the chin, and then drops his eyes to where your hands rest, clasped.

He takes his lower lip between his teeth and allows it to slowly pull back out. You swear it bounces just a tiny bit upon its release and something tightens and twinges in your belly. That’s when he begins to lightly scratch the nail of his thumb across the pad of your own. Up and down, whisper-light, gently abrading the whorls of your identity. It shouldn’t be erotic. It’s such a simple touch. You’re unprepared for the sharp, bright sunburst of arousal that explodes and radiates out from your center and you fail utterly as suppressing a gasp.

He smirks. You can feel it even before you see it. But it’s delight on his features, not smugness, and you shoot him a warning glance encased in a dark smile. Rather than heed it, though, he raises both eyebrows and cocks his head, appraising you. It’s terrifying. You’re blood in the water and he’s circling in tighter.

Still fixing you with his predatory tractor beam gaze, he lifts your hand to his mouth. Slowly. Agonizingly. Time is stretching out and folding in and by the time his lips brush the heel of your hand, you don’t know which way is up, anymore.

Then his eyes take on a tone that is positively evil. Gleefully evil. He curls your fingers to form a loose fist in front of his face, and with one more ante-upping lift of his brow, peeks out the point of his tongue and begins to lick warm, wet circles into the little webs between them.

You have to cover your mouth with your other hand to stifle what would be a full-throated moan. He chuckles into your skin, the first sound either of you has made since leaving the club, then pries and spreads your index and middle fingers apart enough to take the skin between them in between his lips, and he sucks at it.

You simultaneously squeeze your thighs together and snatch your hand away and back into your lap. You stare at him, grinning, indignant, incredulous. More turned on than you have ever been in response to anything. Now there’s a tiny glint of self-congratulation on that face. The smug bastard. Before you have the chance to talk yourself into kissing it off of him, cabbie be damned, he leans forward and casually announces, “Just here, please. Thank you.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laying it all out on the line.

He places a hand on the small of your back as you scoot out of the cab and onto somewhat wobbly legs. After applying a gentle and almost apologetic squeeze to your side, he leans into the passenger window and pays the cabbie while you stand on the curb attempting to reassemble yourself. He turns to you and smiles, all sunshine and innocence. You gape at him as he holds out a gentlemanly arm and chirps, “Shall we?”

Nothing for it. The bastard. You take his arm and allow him to guide you up a few steps and onto a small but charming porch. As he fishes out his keys and unlocks the sturdy oak door, you pipe up. “That was mean.” He glances over at you as the lock clicks, smile coy but warm. “I wish I could say I was sorry…”

In a move that knocks the scraps of self-possession you’d fought for right back out of you, he sweeps you through the open door, kicks it shut behind him, and presses your back to it with the length of his body. One enormous hand pins both your wrists above your head, the other wrapping around your waist to pull you even closer. His open mouth is an inch from yours, mutual breath a tight circuit. Every nerve in your body is tingling but somehow you know that if you showed a single sign of protest, he’d release you faster than a heartbeat. It’s what keeps you perfectly still, utterly silent, trembling with anticipation.

“… But I’m not.”

He bends his head and places a soft, lingering kiss to your jaw, then nuzzles into your neck to place a light kiss there, too. It’s shockingly sweet and tender, given that he’s currently pinning you against a door. Your eyes roll back and flutter shut and you can’t help the hitching breath that stutters out of you. He’s dominating and affectionate; teasing and sincere. You don’t know what to do with it. How to bring the seeming inconsistencies into an alignment of something that makes sense to you. You’ve had more of one and less of the other but never both at the same time and from the same partner and it’s almost too much.

He pulls back slightly and kisses your forehead as he releases your wrists and brings your arms around his shoulders. For a moment he simply holds you there, searching your face with his eyes, both arms circling you but never trapping.

“God, Ben…” you whisper, and you can’t help but infuse those two words with every bit of confliction and confusion that is thudding through your heart right now.

He pulls you back in gently and peppers your cheek with tiny kisses like reverent little prayers, then speaks softly into your ear, voice velvet and whisky and summer rain.

“I meant what I said. About just kissing. The taste of you is intoxicating and your lips are so wonderfully soft. I want to map out your mouth. See what makes sigh and moan and what produces a fit of giggles… What makes you melt underneath me, and what makes you buck your gorgeous hips as you sit astride my lap. I want to swallow every single sound and then squeeze out more.

And if that’s where you want to keep things, I will be utterly content, because the pleasure of kissing a woman like you is a privilege that should be enjoyed to its fullest.”

You sigh and whimper into his shoulder. An errant tear escapes down your cheek and soaks into his jacket even though you’re smiling into his suit. Just his willingness, eagerness even, to accommodate your needs and desires is making you want so much more.

You decide to pose the question.

“And… if I don’t want to keep it there?” You await his answer breathlessly.

“Oh, darling..” He traces the shell of your ear with his tongue and then gives your lobe a wicked little nip. You shudder. If it’s even humanly possible, his voice drops even lower and he presses your bodies together a little tighter. You can feel his arousal pressing into your thigh and it is stunning. Your mind is rapidly making itself up as to the direction you want this evening to go. “Darling.” He smiles against your ear and whispers a breathy coo and your resistance is gone, evaporated, never existed, even before he’s speaking again.

“Would you like to know what I’d very much like to do to you should you desire it?”

Your blood turns to lava and you groan.

“Y-yes…” you manage.

That smirk is against your cheek again, those wicked lips just brushing the tiny hairs on the surface of the skin, and you tighten your fingers around his broad shoulders.

“Mmm. Then I’ll tell you,” he rumbles in response. You feel it vibrating into your chest. “I’d kiss and caress every tantalizing inch of your skin from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. I would take your lovely breasts into my hands and lavish them with my tongue while you tugged on my hair. I’d grip your thighs and your gorgeous arse while I marked your belly with my lips and my teeth, and then I’d map out your cunt with my fingers until you were screaming.”

You’re trembling now, barely holding onto shreds of your sanity. He was taking you apart, making you come undone with just his words, and you were powerless against their onslaught.

He lifts your face to his, eyes blown and dark with purpose, and claims your mouth. This is not the gentle foreshadowing kiss of before. He opens your lips with his and seeks your tongue with urgency. You cry out and he swallows it down while you tangle your fingers into his curls and tilt your head to deepen the contact. He nips at your bottom lip and you suck his tongue into your mouth, causing him to groan and reach down to gather two handfuls of the flesh on your thighs, hiking your dress up, silk under granite slipping against your skin.

You want all of him, right now, right against this door, but he’s not done. You pant against his mouth and his words are like fuel on a blazing fire and he’s refusing to let you look away from his eyes as he speaks arrows through your ragged armor.

“And when you were wrung out and drenched and quivering under my hands, I’d bury my mouth in your sweetness and lick up every last drop. Feast on you until you gripped my head between your thighs and shattered. And then, only then, and only at your word, would I take your face between my hands and fill you up. Join with you. Rock with you. Lock us together at hips and lips until we were both too spent to move.”

You exhale on a sob. Tears are running freely down your face, now, and he’s wiping them away with his thumbs and kissing away the ones that threaten to drip off your chin and his eyes are so tender that you’re not sure your heart can take it. Just as they threaten to cloud over with concern, as his body tenses a fraction of the way to pulling back, you place a lingering, feather-light kiss to his swollen lips and look back up into his eyes.

“Yes. Please. All of it. Of you. Yes.”

He sighs, long and deep, fingers slowly squeezing and releasing. “Then it’s what you shall have.”

He closes his eyes and smiles softly, then takes your lips again, sweetly this time, and you hum into it. When he pulls back, hands gliding over the silk on your back from your shoulder blades to the curve of your back, it’s with a bit of amusement breaking through the want.

“What?” you ask, smiling the question.

He quirks one eyebrow up.

“… The sofa may not be the best venue, after all.”

You laugh, heartily, and so does he, and it’s with joy that you allow your hands to be gently tugged in the direction of the hall.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of libraries and doors and skin on skin.

Ben leads you down the darkened hall towards the bedroom. He’s walking backwards, leading you onward, occasionally pausing to pull you close by your wrists and swoop down for a kiss. You’re baffled by his ability to kiss you senseless while smiling widely, the force of it crinkling the skin under and around his eyes, framing their sweetly mischievous twinkle. 

Where the moments just prior to this were electric and fraught, this is pure play. It’s light and hushed and impossibly intimate and your body is humming. You can’t help but return his goofy grin and struggle a bit against his restraint on your wrists, making it obvious it’s just for show. 

“Oh, no you don’t,” he breathes through his still-smiling mouth. You’ve finally reached the door, which is closed, and he backs you against it softly, echoing your previous position. Your wrists are still encircled, forearms trapped between your bodies, hands resting on his leanly muscled chest. He’s warm and soft and still completely playful as he rests his forehead against yours and rumbles, “I’m going to start a list. Of everything I want to do to you and every place I want to do it.”

Your heart skips against the wall of your chest and you nip at his lip then flick your tongue out to soothe it. “Hmm. A list of places, eh? Are we talking kitchen table or, like, tube station restroom?”

He crinkles his nose in amused distaste. “Good Lord, woman.”

You giggle against his lips and try for a better hypothetical location as he wraps your arms around his back and cradles the back of your head in his hands. “How about… some dark, lonely corner of the British Museum?...” 

He chuckles deeply. “Oh, now you’re beginning to think. More. Where else?”

You let your hands roam over his back, fingers tracing and walking little paths up and down and he shivers a little shiver that’s just for you. Dipping your head down to brush your cheek across his suit jacket, you reply, “Fitting room at Spencer Hart.”

At this he booms with laughter, the vibrations of it rattling you against the door in delight. “Naughty. I like it. Go on…”

You raise an eyebrow at him. Time to test his mettle. “Church. In the confessional. You in a cassock, me in a pleated skirt.” 

To your surprise, his eyes darken and his pupils blow out even wider, even as he gapes at you, just the corners of his mouth turned up. You bat your lashes in an approximation of innocence. He gives what seems to be an involuntary little thrust of his hips, sending a tingle down to your toes and back up. “You, my dear, are full of surprises.”

“Mmm,” you groan, sliding your hands down to his lush arse and squeezing, pulling him against you again. “You haven’t even scratched the surface,” you murmur. He gasps into your ear, his sudden, hot breath sending a wash of goosebumps traveling down your throat. Turnabout is fair play. “What about you,” you whisper. “Any items of your own on that list, yet?”

He wraps his arms around you tighter and pulls your earlobe between his lips, flicking it with his tongue. His hands are kneading the flesh just below your waist at your back and he’s rocking minutely, slowly up against you; unhurried, promising undulations. Your eyes close and your hands grip his hips, thumbs tracing the skin over the bones. “You mean besides up against every doorway in this house,” he breathes.

You giggle and he catches it with his lips, tongue sliding against yours. He pulls back slowly, open-mouthed, bottom lip slipping across your top one, and you pant. He brings his lovely long fingers to your face and feathers them across your cheeks and lips, over your eyebrows and temples, and combs them lightly through your hair, nails teasing your scalp. With a dark little smile pulling one side of his mouth, he says, “Library. Early morning, deep in the stacks. You would have to be a very, very good girl, and not utter a single peep.” He punctuates the last two words with quick pecks to your open lips. 

Your heart is thudding and your mind is blown. You’ve never told anyone about that. It’s your dirty little literary-loving secret, that particular fantasy. Or was. You blink at him, then murmur, “On one condition.”

“Which is,” he whispers, glancing down to your plump lips, then back to your eyes.

“Which is…”, you reply, “You read me Keats while I suck your cock.”

“Oh, God,” he groans, picking you right up off your feet, leaving your scrabbling your hands against his back for purchase, as he opens the door and briskly walks you both through it. His cock is pressing up against your core through layers of fabric and you wish you could somehow magic them away so he’d slide right up, right in, buried to the hilt. “You are too much,” he growls as he sets you down in the very middle of his large bed and crawls up to loom over you, propped up on both hands. “And I haven’t had nearly enough.” He presses down, keeping his frame at a hover above you, and licks a stripe up your neck to your ear with the point of his tongue. “I need to see you.”

He sits up and pulls you with him. Your heart is threatening to crawl out of your throat as he reaches behind you and finds the zip of your dress, drawing it down. His hands travel up your back, and he leaves wet, open-mouthed kisses along the column of your throat, wringing sighs from you. You feel his fingers at the clasp of your bra and he pulls back just enough to look at you, tender question in his eyes. You can do nothing but nod your “yes”, but you mean it. You’re so sure. You’ve never been more sure. 

He smiles a kiss into the corner of your mouth as he deftly undoes the hooks from the eyes and you shiver as he guides both the sleeves of your dress and the straps of your bra down your arms and off your hands, letting them fall away to your hips. You can’t breathe. But he doesn’t look down at you. He keeps his eyes on your eyes, traces your face with them, as he pulls off his own jacket and undoes the buttons of his shirt. He’s not teasing; it’s perfunctory, as if he simply wants them out of the way. You couldn’t watch anywhere but his face right now, anyway. You’ve never seen an even remotely similar look on another human being’s face being directed at you. The tears are threatening to creep back up, and as if he senses this, he tosses his clothing aside somewhere on the floor and gently pulls you to him, chest-to-chest. 

You both gasp at the contact. Warm skin against skin, arms sliding up and around, fingers along spines. Your breasts are pushed against his muscular chest. You can feel his heartbeat. He crushes you to himself, lifting you slightly. One hand moves up to cradle your head and the other cups your bottom, and you’re being held, and you know it’s too soon to be love but it’s affection and care and it’s turning you inside out and exposing every dark, lonely corner like a radiant beam of light. You feel flayed open.

“Oh, God, Ben,” you cry out into his neck, flexing your fingers on his back, nails biting at his skin.   
“Darling…” he sighs. “I’m here. Right here.”

He kisses you, lips barely brushing yours, just a whisper of contact that leaves you even more breathless. After pulling back and sliding his hands down your arms, he takes both of your hands in his and squeezes them, giving you a radiant and open smile. Finally, finally, he begins to move his eyes down your body. 

“Christ,” he murmurs, taking you in. You blush all over. Your natural reaction is bring one arm up to yourself for cover but he tightens his fingers on yours. His eyes meet yours again and you gasp when you see the wonder and appreciation written there. “So, so lovely.” Your eyes flutter shut and you whimper in… in disbelief. In need.   
You feel him move you both to lie down side by side. A thumb glides over your cheekbone and tangles gently with your hair as a pair of long legs twines with yours. “Look at me, love. Please.”

You force yourself to look and he’s waiting, eyes lidded but bright. You can’t help the small smile that tugs at your mouth or the way your own eyes begin their descent down the length of his neck to his strong, lovely shoulders… You delight in the corded muscle of his arms and then smirk at the generous tent his trousers are making.

He catches it and chuckles. “Like what you see?”

Your eyes flash back up to his. “Gracious. Is all that for me?”

He laughs again but his eyes soften and he reaches out to trace little stripes and curls across your belly and side, stopping just short of your breast, thumb sweeping underneath the generous curve of it. “Oh..” you sigh, watching his face, closing your eyes again just as his lips meet yours and open them, slipping his tongue just inside your mouth, just enough to trace it. You’re breathless and trembling again and you shout into his mouth as two of his fingertips brush over your nipple. You buck your hips toward his, and you’re soaking, cunt aching, and it’s glorious.

It’s glorious when his huge hand moves to cup you completely and squeeze as he growls, “I believe I have promises to keep.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Be careful what you wish for because you might just get it.

With that, he delves into your mouth, tongue plundering, lips nipping and sucking at yours. All the while, his right hand kneads and squeezes your breast. He pulls it away and kisses over to your ear, and you break out in a fresh wave of goosebumps as he takes your nipple just between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it between them, and pants, "God, darling. Unbelievably lovely. You feel so good in my hands." A little whine escapes you and you arch into his warm hand. He gasps and pulls up for a moment to position himself in a hover above you. 

Both his hands come up to frame your face, thumbs gliding over your cheeks. The look in his eyes is solemn and searching and you meet it with question. His cock is pressed against the inside of your thigh. You're pressed heartbeat to heartbeat at your chests and your hips. Something is happening, here. Something to do with more than simple lust or animal instinct. It's terrifying, this moment of quiet, as his eyes seek whatever they're looking for in yours; it's the crackling yellow-grey stillness before the wind tears through carrying the rain on its back. You feel each point of connection between you and you've never been so completely exposed, even through the rest of your mutual clothing. He's not moving, not progressing things, not trapping you. 

You bring your hands up between the two of you and cup his face in them. His face ghosts a smile and he bends to lay a sweet and tender kiss at the corner of your eye. "What is it," you whisper, heart skittering. He kisses your cheek, lingering there, and traces the shells of your ears with his fingertips. 

"I just..." He hesitates, and his eyes grow sad for a moment. He drops his forehead to rest on yours. 

"Ben, please, what is it?" Your voice is tremulous. You're afraid you've done something wrong or that he's changed his mind. Maybe he's regretting those promises he made before. Maybe you're not what he wants, after all. You know this was supposed to have been about you, about taking care of your needs, but every insidious, barbed insecurity you've cultivated- with plenty of help- comes needling back in, worming and working up into your skin and your heart, piercing what was beautiful and is now beginning to bleed black. You feel yourself beginning to close. Pupil spiraling back to pinprick; petals coiling back in to cover. This man could have anyone. Women and probably some men lining up for the chance to open their legs to him, and none of them asking him to open his heart in return. Who had you been trying to fool?

But as you're about to scoot out from underneath and flee as fast as you can away from embarrassment, another heartache, he drops his face to your chest and kisses right above your breaking heart. You feel one hot, wet tear splash against your skin, and it drips into the valley between your breasts. It's electric. It shocks you to your core, and you can't help but bury your fingers in his hair and gasp. 

He rolls you to your sides and pulls you impossibly close and breathes, "It's terrifying how very much I want us to take each other apart. God, I want... I just want to let go. And I want you to let go. I want to breathe you and be breathed by you. Go with me. Let go with me. Please promise me you won't hold back." He peppers kisses over your face and strokes your hair and his words are opening wounds and cleaning them out and you know there'll be new scar tissue there but they'll be marks of healing over what has been so much ugliness and festering pain. 

You speak the one thing you can; the only thing pealing through your heart and your brain like noontime bells: "Why?" Why me. Why now. Why, when you could have anyone. Why do you want this, please tell me why because I can't take much more and I need to know why.

He casts his eyes upon yours again and they're alight with an almost defiant certainty. "Because this is true."

You begin to shake. You squeeze your eyes shut against the torrent, but it comes all the same. You're clinging to his back, desperate, and he's rocking you as you quiver and cry, kissing your hair and catching each tear with his lips as they fall. It's too much. It's all too much and it hurts, a knife twisting, and then he moves in for the kill. "Everyone deserves to be loved," he pronounces, and there's his own longing on his lips. "You deserve to be loved," he growls against your mouth, and you hear his inclusion of self in it, and your heart shatters even as it's being stitched right back up. 

"Look at me," he demands. And you, with no other choice, comply. He's burning, bright, a wave of purpose dancing across his skin, and more demands are at his lips. "Say it," he hitches. "Say it. Say you deserve to be loved."

You close your eyes, desperately trying to shield yourself against it, because for all your earlier words, you can't. But he gently grips your face and rumbles, "No! No. Open your eyes. Look at me. Say it." He's both demanding it and pleading it and you feel like everything in the entire world hinges on whether or not you can summon the words. 

"I can't!" you cry. "I can't... I..."

"Yes. Yes, you can. It's true. This is true, remember? Say it." His face is wet and he's trembling too and there's nothing in the world but this and you know he's right. And you know he needs to hear it as much as you need to hear yourself utter it.

You take a shuddering breath and look into the Universe of his eyes. Everything dead-stills for a heartbeat.

"I deserve to be loved." 

It's a breath, a prayer; a great and terrible secret confessed in this darkened church that the two of you have built between your tangled bodies on a foundation of sheets and kisses and truth. 

He exhales a sigh, a benediction, relief in every molecule as it trips across your skin. A spark of hope, maybe of joy kindles in your chest. And when he puts his mouth to yours and then kneels and slips the rest of your clothes down your legs, trailing his hands along your skin, it blazes into full being. He gazes down on you, stripped bare, revealed, and his fingers tighten around the flesh of your thighs. 

"Darling," he speaks through gritted teeth. "Oh, darling..."

Slowly, achingly, eyes fixed on yours and licked with fire, he smooths your legs apart and lowers his face to your core. "I want to drink you." And then you're consumed. Both of his hands slide up to cup your breasts and roll and tweak your nipples as he parts you and takes you apart with his tongue. Your hands fly up to tangle in his hair and your heels scrabble on the sheets as you shout out into the room. He points his wicked tongue and licks a long stripe before taking your sensitive bud in between his lips and sucking. Colors dance behind your eyes and you can see your raging heartbeat in them. You can't stop shouting; screaming his name and God's name, and your fists are full of his soft, soft hair, and every delicate and aching part of you is being worshiped by his mouth. 

He flicks your clit with the tip of his tongue, sighing his breath into your soaking cunt, and then he slicks two impossibly long fingers up into you and curls. You're on fire, burning up, and you arch your entire body up off the mattress because nothing, nothing has ever felt like this, and he follows you all the way. His fingers are expertly stroking over and over against that rough little bundle no one has ever bothered to find before, and as he wraps his mouth around your clit again and groans, you fall completely and utterly apart.

White. Heat and light and cleansing flame, and it's shooting out of your fingertips and the ends of your hair as you quake and burn. Your throat is scratching and hoarse, and his name is coals on your lips. 

It takes a moment for you to realize that you're being held again, cradled close, your face buried in the muscle of his chest, and he's cooing breathy little sounds of comfort in your ear. They begin to coalesce into words. Beautiful words. "Beautiful. That was beautiful. You're so beautiful. Shhh. I'm here. Yes, let it go. God, yes, beautiful. Darling; my darling..." It's a soothing babble; a cool baptism in a mountain brook. 

You cling and your fingers make circles in the skin of his back.

Once you've caught your breath, he pulls back an inch or two and positively beams at you, the smile in his lips and eyes cauterizing what was left of the wounds he'd ripped open and cleansed. He draws you near for a breathless, gentle kiss, and you taste yourself on him. "God, where have you been..." he wonders aloud against your lips. And being laid bare doesn't seem quite so bad.


End file.
